1,237 Projects That Spent Less Than Half of Their Budget Over 5 Years... Unused Funds Total 23 Trillion Won

1,237 Projects with Budget Execution Rate Below 50% Over 5 Years... Ministry of Economy and Finance Has the Largest Unused Funds of 9.3646 Trillion Won

Deputy Prime Minister for Economy Hong Nam-ki is attending the plenary session of the Planning and Finance Committee held at the National Assembly on the 21st, responding to questions from lawmakers. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Jang Sehee] Over the past five years, more than 1,200 government projects have failed to use even half of their allocated budgets, resulting in 23 trillion won in unused funds.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance to Kim Taeheum, a member of the National Assembly's Planning and Finance Committee from the People Power Party, between 2015 and 2019, there were 1,237 projects with a budget execution rate below 50%.

These projects were allocated a total budget of 32.7476 trillion won, of which 22.9163 trillion won remained unused. This means that the unused amount accounted for 70% of the total budget. Among them, 327 projects had a 0% execution rate, failing to spend any of their allocated budgets and returning 5.2617 trillion won in full.

By year, the number of projects with a budget execution rate below 50% was highest in 2015 with 310 cases (6.5482 trillion won unused). Other years included 273 cases in 2016 (6.8241 trillion won), 263 cases in 2017 (5.0365 trillion won), and 227 cases in 2018 (2.6725 trillion won).

In the previous year, 1.835 trillion won was unused across 164 projects.

By ministry, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance had the most projects with execution rates below 50% over the past five years, with a total of 230 projects failing to use half of their budgets. This was followed by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (227 cases), the Defense Acquisition Program Administration (146 cases), and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (73 cases).

The largest amount of unused funds was also from the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, totaling 9.3646 trillion won, followed by the Ministry of Unification (4.4235 trillion won) and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (2.0301 trillion won).

There were cases where the budget execution rate remained below 50% for five consecutive years. These included the Defense Acquisition Program Administration’s basic flight helicopter project (105.9 billion won), the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s construction of a small airport on Heuksando Island (83.2 billion won), and the Ministry of Strategy and Finance’s new construction of Bangbae Police Station (5 billion won).

Lawmaker Kim stated, "Although the government is expanding the fiscal scale record-breakingly every year, including allocating over 555 trillion won for next year’s budget, trillions of won of taxpayers’ money are wasted annually due to poor budget planning and execution management." He added, "For projects with chronic poor execution, it is essential to carefully review whether the allocated amounts are excessive and whether the projects are truly necessary to ensure efficient budget execution."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.